Board Members
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Mahaletchumy Arujanan, Global Coordinator of BioTrust Consortium (International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-biotech Applications): ISAAA AfriCenter, ISAAA SEAsiaCenter and Malaysian Biotechnology Information Center (MABIC)
Dr. Arujanan is the founder/Editor of The Petri Dish, Malaysia’s ­the first science newspaper. She serves as a Public participation and outreach strategy development specialist for UN FAO, Sri Lanka, Biosafety Programme; and Adjunct Lecturer at Monash University Malaysia and AIMST University. She has a PhD in science communication and Masters in Biotechnology from University of Malaya and a degree in Biochemistry and Microbiology from Universiti Putra Malaysia. She sits on the Selangor Bio advisory Council to provide advice on biotechnology development in the state; a member of the National Ad-hoc Biosafety Committee; Industry Advisory Panel for seven universities, and served on the National Bioethics Council. Scientific American Worldview listed her as the world’s 100 most influential people in biotechnology, in 2015.
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Mary J. Boote (Roth), CEO of Global Farmer Network (formerly Truth About Trade and Technology)
Mary serves as Chief Executive Officer of the Global Farmer Network and Global Farmer Network Foundation, a nonprofit advocacy group based in Des Moines, IA, formed and led by farmers committed to insuring the farmers voice is engaged in the global dialogue regarding food and nutritional security. She served as agriculture adviser to Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad from 1997–1999. Ms. Boote has participated in agriculture leadership missions to the Soviet Union (1990) and Hungary (1991, 1992) with emphasis on strategic planning for privatized agriculturalists in newly independent countries. She participated in the World Trade Organization meeting in Hong Kong (2005) and an ACDI/VOCA study tour looking at smallholder maize projects in Kenya and Tanzania (2009). In 2011, she received a gubernatorial appointment to serve as a commissioner on the Iowa Environmental Protection Commission, and was elected chairwoman in 2013. In 2015, Scientific America Worldview named her as one of the Worldview 100: Global industry’s 100 visionaries in biotechnology. Raised on an Iowa family farm, Boote attended Northwestern College, Orange City, IA and has completed the Harvard Business School Agribusiness Seminar. She is a partner in Policy Management Interests, LLC, a public policy management firm that provides issue education, grassroots project implementation and capital campaign fundraising leadership to a variety of agriculture-focused projects.
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Jon Entine, GLP founder and executive director
Jon’s interest in genetics arose from a family history of breast and ovarian cancer, which led to the writing of two books on population genetics: Abraham’s Children: Race, Identity and the DNA of the Chosen People (2007) and Taboo: Why Black Athletes Dominate Sports and Why We’re Afraid to Talk About It (2001). He’s also written on the politics of food and farming: Let Them Eat Precaution: How Politics is Undermining the Genetic Revolution in Agriculture (2005) and Crop Chemophobia: Will Precaution Kill the Green Revolution? (2006); and on science and risk: Scared to Death: How Chemophobia Threatens Public Health. Jon has been a contributing columnist at hundreds of media outlets around the world. He spoke before the National Academy of Sciences and the Australian National Press Club on GMO safety. Before becoming a print journalist, Jon was a producer and executive for 20 years at NBC News and ABC News, winning 20 journalism honors, including a National Press Club Consumer Journalism Award and Emmys for specials on the reform movements in China and the former Soviet Union. He was head of documentaries and Tom Brokaw’s long-time producer at NBC News. He studied philosophy in college and received a National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship at the University of Michigan.
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Nina V. Fedoroff, emeritus professor in molecular biology, Penn State University, former president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science
Dr. Fedoroff received her Ph.D. in Molecular Biology from the Rockefeller University and has served on the faculties of the Carnegie Institution for Science, the Johns Hopkins University, the Pennsylvania State University, and the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology in Saudi Arabia. Fedoroff has published three books and more than 160 scientific papers. She is a member of the U. S. National Academy of Sciences the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the European Academy of Sciences, and the American Academy of Microbiology and is a 2006 National Medal of Science laureate. Fedoroff served as the Science and Technology Adviser to the Secretary of State and to the Administrator of the US Agency for International Development (USAID) from 2007 to 2010. She was President of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) from 2011 to 2012. Fedoroff is member of the External Faculty of the Santa Fe Institute and serves as Senior Science Advisor to OFW Law, Washington, DC.
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Kathleen Hefferon is instructor of microbiology at Cornell University. Kathleen has published multiple research papers, chapters and reviews, and has written three books about plants and human health. Kathleen is the Fulbright Canada Research Chair of Global Food Security and has been a visiting professor at the University of Toronto. Her research interests include the use of plant-based vaccines, molecular farming and biotechnology to promote global health.

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Dr. Ganesh Kishore is a co-founder and Managing Partner at Spruce Capital Partners
Kish has a distinguished track record of accomplishments in biotechnology research and development and business. After receiving a Ph.D. in biochemistry from the Indian Institute of Science, Dr. Kishore received postdoctoral training in chemistry and biology at the University of Texas at Austin. He then joined Monsanto, where he made contributions to the discovery of Roundup Ready technology and the synthesis of Aspartame. During his tenure at Monsanto, he was named a Distinguished Science Fellow and won the prestigious Queeny Award. Before moving to DuPont, he served as the President of Monsanto’s Nutrition & Consumer Sector. He joined DuPont as the Chief Technology Officer of Agriculture & Nutrition. He retired from DuPont as Chief Biotechnology Officer to join Malaysian Life Science Capital Fund, as CEO and later co-founded Spruce Capital Partners. He serves on the board of several companies, academic institutions, and the advisory board of Scientific American. He’s a recipient of Bio’s Legacy Award, ASPB’s Innovation Award.
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Ronald E. Kleinman, M.D., physician in chief, Massachusetts General Hospital for Children; Chair, Department of Pediatrics and former Chief of the Pediatric Gastroenterology and Nutrition at Massachusetts General Hospital; Charles Wilder Professor of Pediatrics at Harvard Medical School
Dr. Kleinman’s areas of research interest include gastrointestinal immunology, nutritional support of infants and children, and nutrition and public health policy. Dr. Kleinman’s professional affiliations include the American Gastroenterological Association, the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases, the North American Society for Pediatrics Gastroenterology and Nutrition, the Society for Pediatric Research, and the American Pediatric Society. He is the author of more than 150 peer-reviewed publications, chapters, monographs, and textbooks. He has been a member of the Medical Advisory Group on Diet and Nutrition Guidelines in Cancer for the American Cancer Society, National Cholesterol Advisory Committee, and a member of the Board of Trustees for the Global Child Nutrition Foundation and Project Bread. Dr. Kleinman served as Chair of the Committee on Nutrition for the American Academy of Pediatrics and is the editor of the fourth, fifth, and sixth editions of the Academy’s Pediatric Nutrition Handbook. He consults for the Grain Food Foundation, Sesame Street Foundation, Beech Nut, the Burger King External Advisory Board, and General Mills. A graduate of Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut, Dr. Kleinman earned his M.D. from New York Medical College and completed his residency and chief residency in pediatrics at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York and his fellowship in Pediatric Gastroenterology and Nutrition at the Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts

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Robert L. Thompson is professor emeritus of agricultural policy at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign; Senior Fellow, Chicago Council on Global Affairs; Senior Adviser, Center for Strategic and International Studies, Washington, DC
Dr. Thompson’s research interest is global food security and international agricultural development, with an emphasis on policy. He has lectured, consulted, or conducted research in more than 90 countries, including extended periods in Denmark, Laos, and Brazil. He is chairman emeritus of the International Food and Agricultural Trade Policy Council and formerly served on the USDA-USTR Agricultural Policy Advisory Committee for Trade. From 2011 to 2015 he was a visiting scholar at Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies. Previously Dr. Thompson served as Director of Rural Development and Senior Advisor for Rural Development at the World Bank (1998-2002); President and CEO of the Winrock International Institute for Agricultural Development (1993-98); Dean of Agriculture (1987-93) and Professor of Agricultural Economics (1974-93) at Purdue University; Assistant Secretary for Economics at the U.S. Department of Agriculture (1985-87) and Senior Staff Economist for Food and Agriculture at the President’s Council of Economic Advisers (1983-85). He received his B.S. degree from Cornell University and his M.S. and Ph.D. degrees from Purdue University, and holds honorary doctorates from the Pennsylvania State University and Dalhousie University. He is a former president of the International Association of Agricultural Economists.
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Laurie Zoloth, senior advisor to the Provost for Social Ethics at the University of Chicago Divinity School and Margaret E Burton Professor at the University of Chicago
Dr. Zoloth is the former director, Center for Bioethics, Science and Society; Professor, Medical Ethics, Religion, Northwestern University. She was professor of Ethics and Director of the Program in Jewish Studies at San Francisco State University before coming to Northwestern. She is past president of the American Society for Bioethics and Humanities and served on its founding board for two terms, receiving the Society’s award for Service to the Field. She is the former Chair of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Bioethics Advisory Board, an executive board member of The Society for Women’s Health Research, and served on the advisory boards of the Robert Wood Johnson’s Project on Excellence at the End of Life, the American Association for the Advancement of Science’s Working Group on Human Germ-Line Interventions and on Stem Cell Research, the Ethics Section of the Louis Finkelstein Institute for Jewish Social Ethics and the Park Ridge Center’s Project on Judaism and Bioethics. She received an NIH ELSI grant to explore the ethical issues after the mapping of the human genome and was named principal investigator of the International Project on Judaism and Genetics, which was co-sponsored by the AAAS and supported by the Haas Foundation and the Greenwall Fund. She is on the editorial boards of the American Journal of Law, Medicine and Ethics, the Journal of Clinical Ethics and the American Journal of Bioethics.

Director of Finance
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Brian Muia, Director of Finance
Mr. Muia is Director of Finance at the GLP and serves as a strategic partner and advisor to the full Board. He is co-partner at Loblolly Solutions in Atlanta, GA. He also provides general consulting, audit and accounting and tax services to individuals and privately-held entities in a variety of industries, including real estate, not-for-profits, employee benefit plans and others. In addition to working directly with clients, Brian presents on entrepreneurial and accounting subjects and serves on various boards. He is a graduate of the University of Georgia, where he earned a Bachelor of Business Administration in Accounting. He is a member of the American Institute of Certified Public Accounts and the Georgia Society of Certified Public Accountants.

Editorial Advisors
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David Gorski is a surgical oncologist, professor of surgery at Wayne State University School of Medicine and the Barbara Ann Karmanos Cancer Institute, specializing in breast cancer surgery. He is an outspoken skeptic, and a critic of alternative medicine and the anti-vaccination movement. He is the author of a blogRespectful Insolence, and a contributor and managing editor of the website Science-Based Medicine.

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Drew Kershen, professor emeritus University of Oklahoma College of Law, agricultural biotechnology
Professor Kershen, who joined the OU law faculty in 1971, taught agricultural law, legal history, professional responsibility and water rights. Beginning in 1997, focused his teaching, research and lecturing on agricultural biotechnology law and policy. After receiving his JD in 1968, he joined a private practice in Atlanta. In 1973, he was named a fellow in law and humanities at Harvard University. He has held visiting professorships at the universities of Kansas, Illinois and Arkansas Little Rock. He has taught at the University of Arkansas-Fayetteville, Oklahoma City University, the University of Texas and Texas Tech. Kershen is coauthor of Farm Products Financing and Filing Service, written in 1990 with J. Thomas Hardin, and has authored more than 50 other book chapters, grant reports and law review articles. Kershen is a past member of the Board of Directors and past president of the American Agricultural Law Association. He served as a trustee to the Rocky Mountain Mineral Law Foundation from 1991-1995. Additionally, Professor Kershen was a Fulbright Teaching Scholar to Honduras in 1999, and served as the Co-Reporter for the UCC Article 7 Revision Committee from 2000-2003.
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Ben Locwin, president Healthcare Science Advisors, PhD in behavioral neuroscience, MBA, MS; former director of Biogen
Dr. Locwin is an author and speaker in the healthcare, pharmaceutical, and life sciences industries. He has worked on therapies for oncology, immunology, dermatology, neurology, and other therapeutic areas, including autologous stem cell therapies, gene and cell therapies, and CAR-T treatments. He has consulted for many industries including hospitals, aerospace, food & beverage, automotive, and pharmaceuticals. He has been featured by Associated Press, CDC, Fox News, Wall Street Journal, Forbes, USA Today and other top-tier media outlets. Ben has degrees in astrophysics, behavioral neuroscience, organizational leadership, and an MBA. He also holds a certification in risk analysis, and master certification as a Six Sigma Master Black Belt. He is a member of several advisory boards for non-profit and for-profit entities, and provides advice and guidance to many top companies.
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Matt M. Winkler, former associate professor cell and molecular biology, University of Texas, chairman and founder of Asuragen and Ambion; chairman of the Winkler Family Foundation
Dr. Winkler obtained a Bachelor of Science in Genetics and a Ph.D. in Zoology from the University of California at Berkeley. After postdocs at the University of Hawaii Kewalo Marine Lab and the University of California at Davis, he became an Assistant Professor of Zoology at The University of Texas at Austin in 1983. Five years later, he was promoted to Associate Professor and also founded the biotechnology company, Ambion, Inc. He is the author of more than 30 publications and has 19 issued patents. In 1991, Winkler left UT to devote his full-time energies to Ambion. Ambion became the preeminent “Molecular Biology Tools Company” focused on RNA. Its headquarters were in Austin, TX, with subsidiaries in Cambridge England and Tokyo, Japan. In 2005 with almost 400 employees Ambion was sold to Applied Biosystems. Winkler took about 100 employees to form Asuragen which develops human diagnostic products for cancer and genetic diseases. Asuragen currently has about 160 employees and does business in over 60 countries. He recently received a “Land Steward Award” from Texas Parks and Wildlife for how he has been managing his ranch. He is a board member of The Breakthrough Institute and Revive and Restore. Winkler is a member of the board of his local public TV station, KLRU, the Advisory Council for the College of Natural Sciences and the UTeach Advisory Council.
Advisors Who Helped Launch the GLP

Media Science

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Kevin Davies
Executive Editor, The CRISPR Journal and GEN Biotechnology;  former editor of Bio-IT World; former publisher of Chemical & Engineering News; author most recently of Editing Humanity (2020). He was the founding editor of Nature Genetics, the world’s leading genetics journal, which he headed for its first five years. His first book, Breakthrough (1995), co-authored with Michael White, told the story of the race for the BRCA1 breast cancer gene. Davies holds an M.A. in biochemistry from the University of Oxford and a PhD in molecular genetics from the University of London. He held postdoctoral fellowships at MIT and Harvard Medical School before moving into science publishing as an editor with Nature magazine.

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Elizabeth Finkel
Editor-at-large, co-founder of Comos magazine (Australia), science writer Elizabeth holds a PhD in biochemistry and was a professional research scientist before becoming a journalist, focusing on human and agricultural genomics. She is author of Genome Generation (Melbourne University Publishing, 2011) and Stem Cells: Controversy at the frontiers of Science (2005), which won a Queensland Premier’s Literary award and was a finalist for the Australian government Eureka award for promoting the public understanding of science. She has won the Amgen and MBF awards for medical journalism, the Michael Daley award for best radio feature broadcast, the Bell Awards’ categories for ‘Best feature writer’ and ‘Best analytical writer’ and a 2011 National Press Club of Australia and Universities Australia Higher Education Journalist of the Year.

Science & Risk Communication

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Geoffrey Kabat, cancer epidemiologist and author, most recently of Getting Risk Right
Over a forty-career as a cancer epidemiologist at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine and Stony Brook University, Geoffrey has studied a wide range of lifestyle, clinical, and environmental factors associated with the risk of cancer, other diseases, and mortality. Major topics of interest include smoking, alcohol, diet, physical activity, hormones, obesity, the metabolic syndrome, sleep, and exposure to chemical contaminants and electromagnetic fields. He has published over 150 peer-reviewed scientific papers in the foremost epidemiology and cancer epidemiology journals. As a practicing epidemiologist, he has had a long-standing interest in how health risks are studied and communicated to the public. His book Hyping Health Risks: Environmental Hazards in Daily Life and the Science of Epidemiology (2008) is considered a classic in risk analysis and communication. His recent book Getting Risk Right: Understanding the Science of Elusive Health Risks (2017) emphasizes the importance of distinguishing between path-breaking scientific work and flimsy research that gets sensationalized by appealing to the public’s fears. He writes a regular column for Forbes on the perception vs. the reality of health risks.
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Gary L. Kreps
Director, Center for Health and Risk Communications, Department of Communication, George Mason University, Gary held the Mandell Endowed Chair in Health Communication from 2004 to 2010. He serves on the Governing Board of the Center for Social Science Research, and is a faculty affiliate of the National Center for Biodefense and Infectious Diseases, the Center for Health Care Ethics and Policy, the Center for International Medical Policies and Practices, Center for Health Information Technology, Center for Consciousness and Transformation, and the Center for Climate Change Communication at GMU. Prior to his faculty appointment, he served for five years (1999–2004) as the founding Chief of the Health Communication and Informatics Research Branch at the National Cancer Institute. He was the Founding Dean of the School of Communication at Hofstra University, Executive Director of the Greenspun School of Communication at UNLV and in faculty and administrative roles at Northern Illinois, Rutgers, Indiana, and Purdue Universities.Dire

Human Genetics

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Henry Harpending (deceased)
Thomas Chair Distinguished Professor of Anthropology, University of Utah, Henry earned his PhD at Harvard in 1972 and is credited with developing the “Out of Africa” theory of evolution. He broke new ground in anthropology and human biology by applying mathematical models to genetic and morphometric variation, examining hypotheses such as population growth, divergence and gene flow. He was a member of the National Academy of Sciences and co-author with Gregory Cochran of The 10,000 Year Explosion: How Civilization Accelerated Human Evolution (2009). They found evidence that our species had only a few thousand members during the last interglacial and that there were several subsequent demographic expansions, the earliest among the ancestors of contemporary sub-Saharan Africans. Dr. Harpending died in 2016.

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Caroline Lieber
Caroline is Director Emeritus of Sarah Lawrence College’s Joan H. Marks Graduate Program in Human Genetics, the country’s first and largest master’s program in genetic counseling. It has turned out more than 800 graduates with linkes to more than 65 genetic centers around the country. She has 35 years of experience in human genet­ics, 18 years as a clinical genetic counselor/supervisor, and 15 years in her role as an educator/administra­tor. She currently serves as a consultant for Counsyl, a fast-growing genomics company, a division of Myriad Genetics.

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Ariella Oppenheim
Professor Emeritus, Hebrew University-Hadassah Medical School, Ariella has held the Henri and Erna Leir Chair in Molecular Biology & Cellular Medicine since 1999 and has been a faculty member since receiving her PhD in Biochemistry from the University of California, Davis in 1966. In 1998 she established the Ethics in Research Committee at the Hebrew University and chaired the Committee. She also participated in the formulation of Israel’s Genetic Information Law and was both a participant and head of ad-hoc committees of the Ministry of Health and of the Ministry of Science on ethical issues in genetics and gene therapy. She helped establish the Gene Therapy Institute at Hadassah in 1992, and since 2003 has been a member of the steering committee of the Israeli National Center For Gene Therapy. She is a member of the National Helsinki Committee, which serves as an advisory committee on ethics to the Ministry of Health.
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Sharon Terry
President, CEO, Genetic Alliance, Sharon runs a network of thousands of genetic disease-specific advocacy organizations. A former college chaplain, she is the CEO of PXE International, a research advocacy organization for the genetic condition pseudoxanthoma elasticum (PXE), which she founded following the diagnosis of her two children. She is also co-founder of the Genetic Alliance Biobank, a centralized biological and data repository on genetic diseases. She serves on the boards of the Institute of Medicine Science and Policy Board, GRAND Therapeutics Foundation, the Center for Information & Study on Clinical Research Participation, The Biotechnology Institute, National Coalition of Health Professional Education in Genetics and the Coalition for 21st Century Medicine. She is on the editorial boards of Genetic Testing and Biomarkers, Biopreservation and Biobanking, and Journal of Postgenomics: Drug & Biomarker Development, and the Google Health and Rosalind Franklin Society Advisory Boards. She is the chair of the Coalition for Genetic Fairness, which was instrumental in the passage of the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act.

Food Security

chavali kameswara rao
Chavali Kameswara Rao
Executive Secretary, Foundation for Biotechnology Awareness and Education, Chavali has over 40 years of academic experience in botanical sciences, particularly phytochemistry, plant diversity, databases of medicinal plants and computer applications in plant systematics. He was the chairman of the Departments of Botany Sericulture at the Bangalore University. FBAE is a non-profit striving to enhance public awareness and raise standards of education and training in biotechnology. He serves on several policy committees of the Department of Biotechnology and Ministry of Environment and Forests in India and life science research policy committees of the US National Academies of Sciences and the World Health Organization.

Legal & Ethics

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Laurie Zoloth, senior advisor to the Provost for Social Ethics at the University of Chicago Divinity School and Margaret E Burton Professor at the University of Chicago
Dr. Zoloth is the former director, Center for Bioethics, Science and Society; Professor, Medical Ethics, Religion, Northwestern University. She was professor of Ethics and Director of the Program in Jewish Studies at San Francisco State University before coming to Northwestern. She is past president of the American Society for Bioethics and Humanities and served on its founding board for two terms, receiving the Society’s award for Service to the Field. She is the former Chair of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Bioethics Advisory Board, an executive board member of The Society for Women’s Health Research, and served on the advisory boards of the Robert Wood Johnson’s Project on Excellence at the End of Life, the American Association for the Advancement of Science’s Working Group on Human Germ-Line Interventions and on Stem Cell Research, the Ethics Section of the Louis Finkelstein Institute for Jewish Social Ethics and the Park Ridge Center’s Project on Judaism and Bioethics. She received an NIH ELSI grant to explore the ethical issues after the mapping of the human genome and was named principal investigator of the International Project on Judaism and Genetics, which was co-sponsored by the AAAS and supported by the Haas Foundation and the Greenwall Fund. She is on the editorial boards of the American Journal of Law, Medicine and Ethics, the Journal of Clinical Ethics and the American Journal of Bioethics.

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